Skip to content

Kate Mosse's new book is a 'love letter' to Sussex

Danny Pike,BBC Radio Sussexand
Tanya Gupta,South East
News imageGetty Images Kate Mosse stands at a lectern speaking at an event. She is wearing an orange jacket over a dark top and is standing beside two microphones mounted on the lectern. The lectern has a pale blue panel on the front. The background is black, with stage lighting illuminating the speaker and lectern.Getty Images
Kate Mosse said her latest book was inspired by Sussex

Best-selling author Kate Mosse has said Sussex in autumn is "like nowhere else" as she marks the publication of her latest book exploring the season.

The Chichester-based writer said Autumn: The Story of a Season draws inspiration from Sussex landscapes including Fishbourne marshes, Chanctonbury Ring and Devil's Dyke, as well as traditions such as the Lewes bonfire celebrations.

"It's a book about memory, belonging. It's a book about what it means to come from somewhere," she said.

"It's my love letter to Sussex. It's very much about the season.

"It's part of a series. Michael Morpurgo wrote Spring, Val McDermid wrote Winter, Bernardine Evaristo, the Booker Prize winner, is writing Summer.

"So autumn is my favourite season, and Sussex in the autumn, there is nowhere like it."

News imagePA Media A large torchlit procession moves through a town street after dark during the Lewes Bonfire celebrations. Participants carry flaming torches above their heads while walking in groups along the road. Many people are wearing historical-style costumes and dark clothing decorated with badges and ribbons. Bright orange flames illuminate the scene, with rows of burning torches stretching into the distance. Multi-storey buildings line both sides of the street, while spectators watch from the edges of the procession beneath streetlights and the night sky.PA Media
Sussex bonfire societies hold events through the autumn, with the largest celebration in Lewes

Her latest book came out on Thursday, but Mosse is already working on her next novel, Borderlands, which is due to be published next year.

"It's set partly in Bosham and Hastings in 1064 and 1066 and the modern day, and then a lot of it is set in the mysterious, very spooky tidal island of the Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy," she said.

"It's inspired by the Sussex history of the Norman conquest and all of this kind of thing, but also my own family history."

The writer said she had a family tree dating back to 1066 when a Mosse had served in the army of William the Conqueror.

"When he survived the Battle of Hastings, he decided Sussex was a very nice place to live. And so he stayed."

Mosse said she had always wanted to write about her own family history.

Her book is due to be published following the exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry in London, and before an exhibition at the British Library next autumn about the Normans, ahead of the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror in 2027, she said.

The author described her next project as "a big old novel", adding that she had already been working on it for a couple of years.

Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, X, and Instagram and listen to BBC Radio Sussex on Sounds. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.

More on this story
Related internet links